Lining up for the Europeans

Iain Percy gives his assessment of next week's Star Europeans in Sweden

The Star Europeans get underway next week, held out of Varbergs Segelsällskap, in Varberg in southeast Sweden. There is a tune-up race on the Sunday (7 August) with six races being held throughout the week until the Friday and with Wednesday as a layday/reserve day.

As ever some of the top sailors in the class will be competing. Leading a large Swedish contingent are the local favourites - two time World Champions and three time European Champions Freddie Lööf and Anders Ekström. After being touted as favourite to win Gold in Athens, they finished a disappointing 12th after picking up an OCS. They are probably favourites for the Europeans.

"Freddie has been going full on this year," comments Iain Percy. "It doesn’t work for me to do it like that. He has always been quite robotic in his training since I’ve known him and he enjoys that. He will be on fire."

Percy and his man giant crew Steve Mitchell also had a disappointing Olympics. The Skandia-sponsored duo are planning to continue their Olympic ambitions (especially with the Games coming to the UK in 2012) but are taking a more laid-back approach than Lööf.

"The last time we sailed the Star was at the Worlds in February and the time before that was the Olympics…So we’re totally practiced," quips Percy. "We’re doing it definitely lower key for the first couple of years. I am very conscious of not going full for four years and it becoming like a job. I still want to be passionate about it when the Olympics come about. So We are happy to be quiet for a while. In terms of how we’ll do we’ll see. We’re obviously not well practice, but we weren’t at the Worlds."



At the Worlds they broke their mast, but came away feeling comfortable having posted two first places and two seconds. "We felt plenty okay there, but we’ll just see," says Percy. "It will be good to see a lot of the guys and get back into it. I am quite excited about that and getting back into the Star and doing some sailing with Steve. It is nice and uncomplicated. I am looking forward to it."

Since Athens several new faces have come into the class. Another Finn Olympian has joined Percy, Xavier Rohart and Percy's boss at +39 Luca Devoti, in graduating up to the men's two man keelboat in the form of Poland's Mateusz Kusznierewicz, bronze medallist in Athens. The other Finn Olympian turned Star sailor, Russell Coutts is not down on the entry list to compete at the Europeans.

"He says he’s doing it occasionally," says Percy of the America's Cup legend. "He is doing it less occasionally than we’re doing it at the moment. He’s missed that kind of sailing over the years. He was saying to me how it was great to be back in a small boat, doing what he loves."

The other hot prospect new to the class is American Mark Mendelblatt who represented the US at the Games in the Laser last year. Stepping into the Star with long term Star sailor Mark Strube, Mendelblatt earlier this year won the Bacardi Cup.

"It is a quiet year and there are not that many people there and Stars are a sympathetic boat - you get in and you can be right at the front. Steve and I proved that in our first year," says Percy. "It is not a tricky boat to sail like a 49er where you go out on the first day, you capsize and not even finish the race. If you are a good racer you can do well straight away."

In this Olympic cycle Percy and Mitchell face some competition in the form of Olympic stalwart Andy Beadsworth and David Carr, who will also be competing next week in Sweden, along with the third British boat sailed by Ante Razmilovic and John Tremlett.



As to the venue, Percy says he has never sailed there before. "Talking to the Swedes they say you can get anything. It is a bit like England. At that time of year you can start getting systems over or you can get sea breeze too."

Entries

	Helm	Crew	Nat
1	Christian Nehammer	Wenk Benedikt	AUST
2	Andreas Hanakamp	Clemens Holzapfel	AUST
3	Hans Spitzauer	Adi Lüzlbauer	AUST
4	Reginald Schlubach	John Schlubach	COL
5	Johnny Jensen	Marten Petersen	DEN
6	Benny Andersen	Mogens Just	DEN
7	Christian Monberg	Martin Leifelt	DEN
8	Josef Garcia de Soto	Alvaro Elorza	ESP
9	Austin Laurea	Manuel Eonzalez	ESP
10	Christian Öller	Johan Öller	FIN
11	Joni Leeve	Asko Salminen	FIN
12	Jali Mäkilä	Erkki Heinonen	FIN
13	Xavier Rohart	Pascal Rambeau	FRA
14	Andy Beadsworth	David Carr	GBR
15	Iain Percy	Steve Mitchell	GRB
16	Ante Razmilovic	John Tremlett	GBR
17	Reiner Petersen	Oliver Berger	GER
18	Lars Kiewning	Markus Mehlen	GER
19	Robert Starjok	Markus Kay	GER
20	Christian Paucksch	Peter Andrü	GER
21	Sibylle Merk	Michael Merk	GER
22	Dirk-André Sommer	Andi Noete	GER
23	Matthias Miller	Frithjof Kleen	GER
24	Jörgen Paust	Stefan Paust	GER
25	Hubert Rauch	Ingo Schappeler	GER
26	Philipp Rotermund	Nils Hollweg	GER
27	Thomas Schiffer	Niel Heutschel	GER
28	Henning Voigt	Dirk Struve	GER
29	Hubert Merkelbach	Oliver Vitzthum	GER
30	Alexander Hagen	Kay Falkenthal	GER
31	Marton Gereben	Peter Gereben	HUN
32	Tibor Tenke	Josef Bendichek	HUN
33	Mahesh Ramchandran	Nitin Mongia	IND
34	Maurice O Connell	Ed Peel	IRE
35	Mario Salani	??	ITA
36	Pierpaolo Christofori	Mannele La Porta	ITA
37	Luca Modena	Michele Marchesini	ITA
38	Giulio Gatti	Corrado Cristaldini	ITA
39	Luca Simeone	Ferdinando Colaninno	ITA
40	Luca Devoti	Stefano Lillia	ITA
41	Eizens Cepurnieks	Eizens Kanskis	LAT
42	Peter van Veen	Paul Goelst	NED
43	Jan Willem Kok	Gerard van der Krogt	NED
44	Alexander Jorissen	Maarten Schut	NED
45	Marc Blees	Gert van der Hayden	NED
46	Chris Frijdal	Rob Eders	NED
47	Mateusz Kusznierewicz	Dominik Zycki	POL
48	Afonso Domingos	Bernardo Santos	PORT
49	Maxim Karelskiy	Aleksander Shazagin	RUS
50	Vladimir Ikonnikov	Alexsei Uschakov	RUS
51	Alexey Lavrov	Alexandr Kuleshov	RUS
52	Peter Podunavac	Davor Pregl	SLO
53	Henrik Dannesboe	Ramis Fayzullin	SUI
54	Daniel Wyss	Eric Monroe	SUI
55	Daniel Stegmeier	Bent Stegmeier	SUI
56	Sune Carlsson	Gunnar Färneth	SWE
57	Börje Larsson	Carl-Fredrik Larsson	SWE
58	Rustan Carlström	Lars Edwall	SWE
59	Eric Dahlén	Olle Bergqvist	SWE
60	Martin Wigforss	Anders Ohlsson	SWE
61	Krister Carlsson	Peter Ek	SWE
62	Hans Oskarsson	Mattias Heiding	SWE
63	Erik Thorsell	Per Pousard	SWE
64	Carl Schröder	Stefan Hemlin	SWE
65	Fredrik Ljungkvist	Daniel Alm	SWE
66	Tomas Fransén	Pontus Gäbel	SWE
67	Bo Staffan Andersson	Michael Broad	SWE
68	Tobias Chroneér	Charlotta Chroneér	SWE
69	Ingvar J-son Krook	Erik Gamner	SWE
70	Mats Johansson	Leif Möller	SWE
71	Anders Högland	Lars Ahlstedt	SWE
72	Fredrik Lööf	Anders Ekström	SWE
73	Eugen Ajksertiev	Mykola Shaposalov	SWE
74	Vasyl Gureyev	Volodymyr Korotkov	SWE
75	George Szabo	Christian Finnsgård	USA
76	Mark Mendelblatt	Mark Strube	USA